Friday, April 13, 2012

In the recent past, there has been advancement in technology in the field of automotive lighting. The halogens bulbs are being replaced by the xenon bulbs which are brighter and long-lasting. These bulbs produce more light and consume less power making them have a competitive edge over the halogens bulbs. Outlined below are some of important reasons for using xenon lights in your car.

Xenon bulbs are the brightest compared to other types of bulbs. They produce more light and heat as compared to their halogen counterparts. This makes it possible for the drivers to have a clear view on a large radius at night. This enables drivers to see and avoid any obstacles on the road hence reducing chances of road accidents. Through such lighting, many lives that would be lost during night times when most accidents occur are saved.

They are easy to handle, maintain and install. Any novice user of the car can install a new bulb because one is only needed to simply replace the old bulb with a new one. The task requires no special skill or advanced device to perform. This means the owner will have no need to take the car to the garage for installation.

They are highly durable as compared to halogen bulbs. They can absorb shocks and still continue functioning well even in great vibrations. This is possible because they produce light when electric current passes through a Xenon-gas filled chamber and not a filament that break under intense pressure. The gas also takes quite a long time before going out.

It is true that their cost in the shop is higher. But if their length of service is factored then they are better in terms of value than any other lighting. Use of these bulbs will save one a lot of money that is used in frequent repair or replacement as it is with other cheap bulbs. They also spend less energy to produce as much light to fit the need of the driver.

Installing them on your car will serve as a safety measure when driving at night. Fitted with an automatic device that reduces glare, the driver is able to estimate the size of bumps approximately during nighttime. It also has an adaptive feature that turns the light in accordance with a particular corner so that the driver can have a clear view of the corner.

They also come in a variety of color and style. Which ever your preferred in color, they come in crystal white, blue or white with a tint or without, there is a choice for every customer. Different varieties are sold at different prices depending on their quality.

Although the xenon lights are relatively expensive, their usage outweighs the expenses incurred in acquiring them. These bulbs are readily available in the market and hence car owners should replace the halogens bulbs with such because of their cost effectiveness. Their importance is not only in saving the life of the car but also of people involved.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

If you work in trades associated with cars or the automotive industry there will likely be times when you will need to drive cars that don't belong to you. For example moving new stock around in a car dealership or test driving a customers vehicle after you have carried out some service or maintenance on it.

Driving cars in this manner for business purposes clearly cannot be allowed under a normal private motor insurance policy, however it would be impractical if not impossible to add named vehicles onto any type of policy in the course of your normal days work.

For this reason a special class of commercial motor insurance exists called motor trade road risks insurance. The cover this policy provides satisfies the Road Traffic Act to enable the policyholder to 'drive any vehicle' in the course of their business, and if they choose for social, domestic and pleasure purposes as well.

A motor trade policy offers the most flexible driving cover available and*nearly every scheme can be tailored to a particular motor trade's road risks.

Road risks insurance is calculated differently from private motor premiums where the declared value of a car is used for rating. In a road risks policy the trader sets a level of indemnity or amount that he wishes to cover himself for driving other vehicles. This could be as little as five thousand for a part-time used car dealer or mechanic up to a hundred thousand for a valet in a Ferrari Dealership for example.

A new car dealership of prestige cars would need a policy that not only covered the cost of replacing a new car should it be written off but also an extension to cover members of the public test driving the car accompanied by a named driver. However a used car dealer working from home or a mobile mechanic would only need basic road risks cover with perhaps a tools cover extension. Many road risk policies vary in what is considered basic cover and motor traders should be aware of extra covers such as legal protection and windscreen covers, as they would with a normal motor insurance policy.

Motor Traders with premises such as forecourts or shops will require what is known as a combined motor trader policy. This is simply a basic road risks policy allowing employees and named drivers to drive any vehicle combined with other risks that a motor trader might face, such as liability and property damage.

Liability insurance forms the basis of a combined motor traders policy, in particular product and public liability which covers your business against claims from members of the public to who you have supplied services or parts or who have suffered injury whilst visiting your premises.

If you employ any staff in either workshops, garages offices or out on the road in commercial vehicles or vans, you are required by law to have employers liability insurance cover in force. This cover protects your motor trade business against claims from employees and staff who might suffer an accident at work and claim against you in the courts.

Additional options such as business interruption insurance is available to cover catastrophe situations such as a fire where you may lose all your stock, or group personal accident which will cover members of staff against accident and sickness.

Anyone who works in the motor industry can apply for a motor trade insurance policy. Policies are available for car dealers, car valets, parking attendants, mechanics, body repair shops, service garages and motor parts shops, to name but a few trades eligible.

Motor trade cover is available to all small businesses including sole traders without premises and people working from home and on a part-time basis.

Monday, April 9, 2012

It takes a highly specialized inventory of supplies to keep automotive dealerships up and running at peak performance. In addition to maintaining an efficient sales floor, most car dealerships also maintain a full service facility, essentially running two separate businesses under one roof. Dealership service facilities require their own separate set of supplies to keep them well-organized and operating smoothly.

There are many forms, tags and auto body supplies auto dealership service departments depend on to keep business running. The following five car dealership service department supplies tend to be the most essential for dealerships in terms of both providing excellent customer service and maintaining an organized shop.

Dispatch Hang Tags

Service dispatch hang tags are simply numbers printed on sturdy tags used to keep track of repair orders and customer vehicles. Most dispatch hang tags have two smaller matching sets of printed numbers at the bottom along perforated edges; these can be torn out and placed on car key tags and used as customer dispatch tags. Depending on how the dealership's service department is organized, the dealership may choose to use colored dispatch tags or plain tags.

Plastic Seat Covers

For many auto dealerships, using plastic seat covers to protect customers' car interiors is a no-brainer. A small, simple step, placing inexpensive plastic film seat covers over car interiors before beginning work shows customers that their vehicles are well cared for - and that their business is valued. Most seat covers are single or double ply sheeted plastic which come in rolls.

Static Cling Write-In Oil Change Reminder Labels

In terms of customer retention, few items are more important for car dealership service departments and stand-alone auto service facilities than service reminder stickers. Placed in the windshield of the customer's vehicle after service has been completed, static cling service reminder stickers remind drivers of when their vehicle is due for its next oil change, routine maintenance inspection and so forth. Most service facilities choose to use customized reminder labels complete with their facility's name and contact information, reminding drivers of where their vehicle was last serviced and - hopefully - what an excellent experience they had having their vehicle serviced there.

Paper Floor Mats

Another body shop item used to protect car interiors as the vehicles are serviced, paper floor mats are not only a great opportunity to show excellent customer service, but also to increase customer retention and brand awareness. Standard paper floor mats display messages such as "Thank you for your business!", but service facilities can easily purchase customized paper floor mats displaying their business name, contact info and even a custom message. These mats remind customers that their vehicle is in good hands - and they further impress the service facility's brand name into customer awareness.

Night Drop/Early Bird Envelopes

Vehicles don't only break down during business hours - which is why having a good night drop system in place is key for any auto service facility. Using night drop envelopes (also known as early bird envelopes), customers can drop their vehicles off at a service facility during any time of the night or day, even on weekends and holidays, and know their vehicle will be serviced as soon as possible. Night drop/early bird envelopes provide critical information which protects the service facility or dealership from potential libel; this information includes labor rate disclosure and areas for the customer to indicate what services he/she wants to be performed (or not). Different states have different requirements about what information must be included on these forms.

Jeff Dodson is the owner of Dodson Group, a business supply vendor specializing in car dealership supplies such as paper floor mats, hang tags and oil change reminder labels. Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dodson Group has worked with area auto dealers and businesses to increase sales and lower costs with targeted marketing strategies and competitively-priced supplies. Learn more about Dodson Group at Dodson-Group.com, or browse their auto dealer supply catalog.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

In any serious discussion of Search Engine Optimization, you will hear the term "backlink". A backlink (also known as an inbound link) is a link directed towards your website from other sites. Backlinks are the most important ranking factor for search engines, helping to decide where to rank a web page in search results. Google, for example, will give more credit to websites that have a number of "quality backlinks." They will, in fact, consider these websites more relevant than others in results pages. Backlinks, therefore, have become fundamental building blocks to the SEO process.

But what is a "quality backlink"? Essentially, the sites directing links to you must have content that is related to your site. If they do, those backlinks are considered more relevant (Backlinks found on sites with unrelated content are considered less relevant). The higher the relevance of the backlinks, the greater their quality. Let's say, for example, that a program page your school has for "Automotive Mechanic Training" gets a backlink from an auto repair shop. This would be considered a relevant, quality backlink (as opposed to getting a inbound link from a website about cooking supplies and recipes).

That said, criteria for quality inbound links has gotten tougher (thanks to people using hidden links or so-called "backlink farms" - pages whose sole purpose is to provide inbound links to websites).

Here are some tips on how to increase your school website's backlinks:

Have great content

If there's nothing for people to link to, they won't. Put some effort into creating dngaging content that best represents everything you have to offer (including informative program pages, blog posts, YouTube videos and photo galleries), and you will have taken your first step to generating quality backlinks.

Keep your eyes peeled and be polite

Keep an eye out for sites that mention your school without a link (or those that use anchor text like "click here" instead of your school name) and ask them nicely to add a link. Most of the time, webmasters will be more than happy to oblige, particularly if you return the favor somewhere down the line. Using Google alerts is a good way to make sure you don't miss any mentions of your school or program.

Use press releases

Press releases are a secret SEO weapon, and regularly submitting press releases (filled with backlinks using keyword-rich anchor text, i.e. "Accounting Training in Toronto" instead of "Click Here") are an easy way to promote events and increase backlinks.

Article marketing

Submitting content to article syndication sites like EzineArticles can be an effective method of increasing backlinks to your school's program pages.

Submit to directories

It's not typically an SEO best practice to pay for links but there a few good paid directories that we would recommend submitting content to. These include: Yahoo Directory and business.com. Another good open directory (and free!) project can be found at dmoz.org.

Participate on relevant forums and blogs

Having a presence on popular forums can can be helpful on the Search Engine Optimization front, as posts (preferably with a sig link back to your school) can help increase your backlinks. However, please keep in mind that spammy or generic comments can reflect badly on the school. Links in blog comments, meanwhile, won't help your SEO, however, they can be a good tool for building your brand, getting visitors and increasing future backlinks.

Leverage social media

The more great content you share, the more likely someone out there will retweet or repost something and help generate an inbound link back to your website.

Think quality not quantity

It's better to have ten quality backlinks than a hundred lousy inbound links. Paying for links or using link exchanges or other link schemes is just not worth it, especially since Google may punish your website for using these tactics. Be patient and focus on quality.

Philippe Taza is the founder and CEO of Higher Education Marketing, a leading Web marketing firm. Taza has worked in the Canadian Education market for nearly a decade, specializing in Google Analytics, Education Lead Generation, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Mobile SMS Alerts, Social Media Marketing and Pay Per Click Marketing, among other Web marketing services and tools.

Friday, April 6, 2012

There are many reasons for using a business fuel card. Your business expenses should be kept separate from your personal expenses and using a fuel card can keep your business fuel cost separated from your personal use fuel expenses. This makes your business accounting simpler.

If you are employed and need to report daily expenses for sales trips, this is another reason why using a business fuel card makes sense. When you must report expenditures to your accounting department, it helps to have the fuel costs already neatly compiled as expenses on a card. That makes for one less step for the employee and the accounting department. It's easier to back track also, because the expenses do not change and are often available for reference for years.

You may run a business that uses vehicles, delivery trucks, cars, etc. This may require your drivers to refuel their vehicles at outside gas stations. Each driver could be issued his own card to use for fuel. This allows the business to track expenses and keeps the drivers from having to be prepared to refuel the company vehicle.

By encouraging your employees to use business fuel cards the company may be eligible for discounts and other perks offered by the card company. These freebies could be used to pump up employee morale. By offering these incentives the company could stage sales contests. As each of your salesmen go after a sale, they will need to refuel, which increases the company's standing in the fuel card company's incentive plan. And each time the salesmen make a sale the business grows just a little bit more, improving overall production.

Your business could grow astronomically, just by using the incentives the card company offers to encourage its use. If they don't offer gifts, they may offer discounts, which the company can use to lower its expenses. Again, the company can use these reduced expenses to funnel money into an incentive plan for its employees which could end up greatly increasing its revenues.

The reasons for using a business card are numerous, but the most important ones are that using a card, keeps your fuel records in order and clearly understood. This is great for the accounting department's efficiency. The next reason is to simplify the records of staff, salespeople or drivers. If you have sales staff, this makes it easier for the sales team to keep track of their sales activity and the costs associated with it. And lastly, it allows the company to take advantage of discounts or other perks associated with the volume of gas that company employees might use as a group. Hopefully, there will be perks and the company will have an opportunity to benefit from them.